1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, a charge processing method, and a computer-readable recording medium having a computer program.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are conventional known techniques of cooperating a plurality of devices to achieve a function that otherwise cannot be achieved by each device alone or to achieve distributed execution of an identical function over a plurality of devices. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2010-73016 discloses a technique of performing charge processing for a lone operation when a device is operated alone and performing charge processing for cooperation when a device cooperates with an external server.
However, the conventional techniques described above is based on an assumption that charge is made to profit the administrators of any device that is operated and the external server.
Consider such a charging system in a multi-vendor device environment as a mixture of devices of different vendors in which a plurality of devices are made to cooperate using a cooperating function that causes the devices to cooperate. In this case, when the devices include a device of a first vendor that provides the cooperating function and a device of a second vendor different from the first vendor, charge for a function executed by the device of the second vendor is made to profit the second vendor. By contrast, charge for the use of the cooperating function, which is provided by the first vendor, by the device of the second vendor is not made to profit the first vendor, resulting in lost profits of the first vendor. For example, each device is only configured to count and store the number of executions of processing such as printing performed by itself irrespective of lone operation or cooperation, so that charge processing is performed in accordance with usage. Such charge processing based on the number of executions of printing is made only to profit a device (the device of the second vendor) that performs printing processing in cooperation.
In view of the above-described conventional technology, there is a need to provide an information processing apparatus, a charge processing method, and a computer-readable recording medium having a computer program that can prevent generation of lost profits of a provider of a cooperating function of enabling a plurality of devices to cooperate.